I purposely removed the specific cases, to talk about the more general concept of "law". Humans will have great difficulty having a reasonable debate over a specific law like in the examples you have chosen. (They are particularly emotive ones)
I don't believe I can conclude on my own whether society benefits from the existence of laws, nor can I say that any one law benefits society.
I believe that I can conclude on my own that a law making homosexuality punishable by death does not >benefit society.
These statements are not mutually exclusive. I'd like to try again to be clear that I meant "The existence of laws" not "the existence of this one specific law".
I believe that I can conclude on my own that a law making homosexuality punishable by death does not benefit society.
In the interest of demonstrating (my point) the inability to reason one law's benefits to society (or to prove your point) - please reason out your entire conclusion from start to finish of why:
a law making homosexuality punishable by death does not benefit society.
I expect this reasoning to be some thousands of words long to reason out entirely your point. (because precisely my point is that its not that simple)
For your second comment; Can you make the argument without referring to a specific law?
(also please refrain from making judgements on others, feel free to judge an argument, tear it to shreds; but not the person who makes it)
Apologies for the edit: I seem to be having troubles getting formatting to work the way I want it to.
I'd like to try again to be clear that I meant "The existence of laws" not "the existence of this one specific law".
What does "nor can I say that any one law benefits society" mean, then, if not "for all X, where X is a law, I can't say that X benefits society"?
For your second comment; Can you make the argument without referring to a specific law?
If your statement applies to all laws, it also applies to worst case scenario laws.
[CW: This post talks about personal experience of moral dilemmas. I can see how some people might be distressed by thinking about this.]
Have you ever had to decide between pushing a fat person onto some train tracks or letting five other people get hit by a train? Maybe you have a more exciting commute than I do, but for me it's just never come up.
In spite of this, I'm unusually prepared for a trolley problem, in a way I'm not prepared for, say, being offered a high-paying job at an unquantifiably-evil company. Similarly, if a friend asked me to lie to another friend about something important to them, I probably wouldn't carry out a utilitarian cost-benefit analysis. It seems that I'm happy to adopt consequentialist policy, but when it comes to personal quandaries where I have to decide for myself, I start asking myself about what sort of person this decision makes me. What's more, I'm not sure this is necessarily a bad heuristic in a social context.
It's also noteworthy (to me, at least) that I rarely experience moral dilemmas. They just don't happen all that often. I like to think I have a reasonably coherent moral framework, but do I really need one? Do I just lead a very morally-inert life? Or have abstruse thought experiments in moral philosophy equipped me with broader principles under which would-be moral dilemmas are resolved before they reach my conscious deliberation?
To make sure I'm not giving too much weight to my own experiences, I thought I'd put a few questions to a wider audience:
- What kind of moral dilemmas do you actually encounter?
- Do you have any thoughts on how much moral judgement you have to exercise in your daily life? Do you think this is a typical amount?
- Do you have any examples of pedestrian moral dilemmas to which you've applied abstract moral reasoning? How did that work out?
- Do you have any examples of personal moral dilemmas on a Trolley Problem scale that nonetheless happened?
The Username/password anonymous account is, as always, available.